With the increasing globalization of the economy, opportunities exist for many companies to derive significant revenues outside of their local geographic area. However, to realize these revenues, the products and services offered by a company typically need to be localized to conform to the customs and culture of the geographic areas where the company wishes to do business. A significant aspect of localization involves the process of translating terms and phrases associated with a product or service into the geographic area's native language. However, for some native languages, English is still the predominant language when it comes to computing, and thus English terminologies are often borrowed for use in these native languages. Because many software products commonly use computer-specific terminologies in their user interface, the task of properly translating software into these native languages is difficult (e.g., since some words should not be translated).
Translation has traditionally been performed using humans, automated methods, or both. Using humans typically means hiring a translator or group of translators to translate a set of terms. Automatic methods typically involve translation software, but human intervention is still needed to handle technical terms with no corresponding foreign-language equivalent and to deal with differences in meaning from direct translations due to cultural differences. Additionally, the translation software will likely not be able to translate terms that have been specifically created for a new product.
Organizations may choose to conduct localization using in-house resources or outsource the bulk of the localization effort. Companies that attempt localization using in-house resources usually experience significant costs and may lack the required expertise. Outsourcing localization may be cheaper (albeit still costly), but means that the organization must depend on the company providing the localization services. Additionally, outsourcing means the organization is dependent on the localization experience and linguistic skills of the hired localization experts. These few localization experts would be responsible for the entire localization effort. If a single translator were used, the organization would be highly dependent on that person's skill and availability.
Accordingly, the prior art is lacking an effective method and system for translating terms from a source language to a target language.